As I've alluded to a few times, I plan on a major overhaul of diplomacy AI intelligence in Vox Populi throughout the upcoming year or so.
Diplomacy in Civilization is complicated because it has a lot of different goals that it needs to balance, and when the balance is done poorly you get an AI that makes nonsensical decisions.
These are my objectives for the rework (in no particular order):
1) The diplomacy AI should aim to win the game where possible. If it cannot win the game themselves, it should focus on survival, forming alliances to overcome opponents together, and/or propping up players who treat them well over players that don't. It should always be looking out for its own interests.
2) The AI should be neither too passive (BNW) nor too aggressive (last beta). It is better to err on the side of aggression because most players seek a challenge, but it shouldn't be stupid aggression (endless phony wars accomplish nothing, and ramming tons of weak units into a skilled human player's defenses just gives them XP and yields, making them even stronger). The AI should gravitate towards neutrality as a default, not friendliness or aggression.
3) The AI must strike a balance between being too predictable (exploitable) and being too erratic (impossible to comprehend).
4) For flavor and smarter decisions, individual civilization leaders should behave differently from each other, but not radically so unless the situation calls for it.
5) The AI should be strong at evaluating the situation and making good decisions. However, the AI's situational assessment should not be the only factor in its decisions - see 4 and 7.
6) AIs should not treat humans differently from other AIs unless there is a good reason for it, and should also avoid cheating (e.g. using information they shouldn't know) where possible.
7) Diplomacy should be rewarding for players that invest time and resources into maintaining good relations and treating the AI well. This does not mean always being able to evade challenges (e.g. bribing the AI to avoid war constantly), or being stupid (e.g. allowing enormous warmomgering with no consequences) but there should be a return on investment for assistance, long friendships, etc. even if it sacrifices the AI's win chances slightly. This is a game and meant to be fun, after all.
8) In contrast, however, diplomacy should be punishing for players that do not take the time to invest resources into it - and because resources are limited and also because of global politics, civilizations that are friendly with everyone should be a very infrequent occurrence.
9) If the AI can send any statement to a human that has an impact on gameplay (a promise request, for instance), the human should also be able to do the same.
10) Diplomacy should feel realistic and immersive, within reasonable limits. My goal is to make the AI feel less robotic and more like actual civilization leaders.
(Note: Memory and performance limitations unfortunately make the addition of large amounts of diplomacy text difficult, although I'm searching for some way around this problem.)
11) Diplomacy decisions should feel meaningful. If one choice is always best it is simply annoying - for this reason the AI should also avoid doing things like asking the human for Open Borders every 2 turns.
12) Diplomacy should generally be fun, at least for the majority of players. Options can be added if enough people want a specific playstyle (for instance, if they want non-competitive or hyper-competitive AI) so it can be fun for everyone.
13) Good documentation/a guide of some sort should be available to teach players how to conduct effective diplomacy.
14) In general, the AI should be adaptive and able to change as the circumstances do.
15) Diplomacy AI should be less opaque to developers, more open to modding and easier to debug.
In addition, I aim to improve trade logic, since the AI there could use improvement in a number of ways. For instance, they should be able to trade embassies and open borders in a single turn - they should not say "there is no way to make this work" when they are willing to accept something...
...and most importantly of all, when requesting help the button should NOT be labelled "DEMAND" but rather "REQUEST". It drives my OCD mad! Mad, I say! Wait, where was I...oh, right, this thread.
I started this thread so the community could suggest ways they think the diplomacy AI could be improved, to get feedback on the rework I'll be doing, and to update people on my progress.
Note that this is going to be a longrunning project, diplomacy is complicated (as I've outlined above) and I have other things to do in my life, so patience and reasonable expectations are good ideas.
Also note that I do not plan on making alterations to non-diplomacy AI like military, tactical, or city production AI.
With all of this said, I'd be happy to hear what others think of this and any ideas they would like to contribute.
Diplomacy in Civilization is complicated because it has a lot of different goals that it needs to balance, and when the balance is done poorly you get an AI that makes nonsensical decisions.
These are my objectives for the rework (in no particular order):
1) The diplomacy AI should aim to win the game where possible. If it cannot win the game themselves, it should focus on survival, forming alliances to overcome opponents together, and/or propping up players who treat them well over players that don't. It should always be looking out for its own interests.
2) The AI should be neither too passive (BNW) nor too aggressive (last beta). It is better to err on the side of aggression because most players seek a challenge, but it shouldn't be stupid aggression (endless phony wars accomplish nothing, and ramming tons of weak units into a skilled human player's defenses just gives them XP and yields, making them even stronger). The AI should gravitate towards neutrality as a default, not friendliness or aggression.
3) The AI must strike a balance between being too predictable (exploitable) and being too erratic (impossible to comprehend).
4) For flavor and smarter decisions, individual civilization leaders should behave differently from each other, but not radically so unless the situation calls for it.
5) The AI should be strong at evaluating the situation and making good decisions. However, the AI's situational assessment should not be the only factor in its decisions - see 4 and 7.
6) AIs should not treat humans differently from other AIs unless there is a good reason for it, and should also avoid cheating (e.g. using information they shouldn't know) where possible.
7) Diplomacy should be rewarding for players that invest time and resources into maintaining good relations and treating the AI well. This does not mean always being able to evade challenges (e.g. bribing the AI to avoid war constantly), or being stupid (e.g. allowing enormous warmomgering with no consequences) but there should be a return on investment for assistance, long friendships, etc. even if it sacrifices the AI's win chances slightly. This is a game and meant to be fun, after all.
8) In contrast, however, diplomacy should be punishing for players that do not take the time to invest resources into it - and because resources are limited and also because of global politics, civilizations that are friendly with everyone should be a very infrequent occurrence.
9) If the AI can send any statement to a human that has an impact on gameplay (a promise request, for instance), the human should also be able to do the same.
10) Diplomacy should feel realistic and immersive, within reasonable limits. My goal is to make the AI feel less robotic and more like actual civilization leaders.
(Note: Memory and performance limitations unfortunately make the addition of large amounts of diplomacy text difficult, although I'm searching for some way around this problem.)
11) Diplomacy decisions should feel meaningful. If one choice is always best it is simply annoying - for this reason the AI should also avoid doing things like asking the human for Open Borders every 2 turns.
12) Diplomacy should generally be fun, at least for the majority of players. Options can be added if enough people want a specific playstyle (for instance, if they want non-competitive or hyper-competitive AI) so it can be fun for everyone.
13) Good documentation/a guide of some sort should be available to teach players how to conduct effective diplomacy.
14) In general, the AI should be adaptive and able to change as the circumstances do.
15) Diplomacy AI should be less opaque to developers, more open to modding and easier to debug.
In addition, I aim to improve trade logic, since the AI there could use improvement in a number of ways. For instance, they should be able to trade embassies and open borders in a single turn - they should not say "there is no way to make this work" when they are willing to accept something...
...and most importantly of all, when requesting help the button should NOT be labelled "DEMAND" but rather "REQUEST". It drives my OCD mad! Mad, I say! Wait, where was I...oh, right, this thread.
I started this thread so the community could suggest ways they think the diplomacy AI could be improved, to get feedback on the rework I'll be doing, and to update people on my progress.
Note that this is going to be a longrunning project, diplomacy is complicated (as I've outlined above) and I have other things to do in my life, so patience and reasonable expectations are good ideas.

Also note that I do not plan on making alterations to non-diplomacy AI like military, tactical, or city production AI.
With all of this said, I'd be happy to hear what others think of this and any ideas they would like to contribute.
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